OPUS: Synthesizing concepts about succession, disturbances, and indicators based on long-term research at Mount St. Helens

演替是生态群落中物种随时间变化的过程。理解演替对于理解干扰如何影响生态系统至关重要。生态学家并不认为扰动是灾难性的破坏因素，而是长期系统动力学的正常部分，有时甚至是不可分割的部分。虽然干扰可以显著影响生态系统过程，但它们很少被纳入生态学研究。然而，动荡的发生频率和强度都比过去更高。在这个项目中，1980年圣海伦火山灾难性爆发后建立的40年监测永久地块的数据提供了一个前所未有的机会，可以审查1980年以来发生的极端干扰和二次干扰后的生态恢复能力。这项研究将建立在研究人员的文件，资源管理人员和其他利益相关者必须有知识的继承，干扰的影响，变化的指标，规划干扰，从而提供长期的保护生态系统。该项目不仅将产生一份科学论文、报告和数据集，还将出版一本书和一个严肃的游戏，为公众提供一种手段，让他们了解在演替和持续干扰过程中影响生态变化的力量。虽然演替是生态学的基本概念之一，演替理论还没有完全整合干扰在影响演替过程中的作用，也没有评估如何使用变化指标来提高对继承动态的理解。通过综合自1980年圣海伦火山爆发以来监测的永久地块的信息，该项目将测试和更新一个演替的概念模型，其中包括持续干扰的影响、幸存者的作用、随着时间的推移新生境的创造、随机事件和生态过滤器（筛选出某些繁殖体、物种或相互作用，从而限制生态机会的条件）。拟议项目涉及的主题包括生态条件如何随着时间的推移而变化，干扰，在关键指标的变化表明生态恢复，以及人类活动和自然干扰如何影响生态演替。关于植被重建，种子传播，自圣海伦斯火山爆发以来的40年中收集的土壤和其他环境条件的变化以及由此合成的指标和其他信息将被放置在圣海伦斯火山国家火山纪念碑的永久档案中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式获得支持：使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

Succession is the process of change of species in an ecological community over time. Understanding succession is essential to understanding how disturbances affect ecological systems. Disturbances are not viewed by ecologists as catastrophic agents of destruction but rather as normal, sometimes even integral, parts of long-term system dynamics. While disturbances can significantly impact ecosystem processes, they are seldom included in ecological studies. Yet disturbances are occurring with greater frequency and intensity than in the past. For this project, data from 40 years of monitoring permanent plots established after the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine ecological resilience after extreme disturbance as well as secondary disturbances that have occurred since 1980. The study will build on the researcher’s documentation that resource managers and other stakeholders must have knowledge about succession, effects of disturbances, and indicators of change to plan for disturbances and thus provide long-term protection of ecological systems. The project will produce not only a scientific paper, presentations, and data sets but also a book and serious game that will provide a means for the public to learn about the forces that affect ecological changes during succession and ongoing disturbances.While succession is one of the basic concepts of ecology, theories of succession have not yet fully integrated the role of disturbances in affecting successional process nor evaluated how indicators of change can be used to improve understanding the dynamics of succession. By synthesizing information from permanent plots monitored since the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, this project will test and update a conceptual model of succession that includes effects of ongoing disturbances, the role of survivors, creation of new habitats over time, random events, and ecological filters (conditions that screen out some propagules, species, or interaction and therefore limit ecological opportunities). Topics addressed by the proposed project include how ecological conditions change over time following disturbance, what alterations in key indicators suggest for ecological recovery, and how human activities and natural disturbances influence ecological succession. The data on vegetation reestablishment, seed dispersal, and changes in soils and other environmental conditions that were collected over the 40 years since the eruption of Mount St. Helens as well as the indicators and other information resulting from this synthesis will be placed in the permanent archive at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.